In the hauling of materials to or from remote sites, more often than not a truck operator must wait at the site to which material is delivered for a customer or other user to remove the shipped material from his truck. Normally, this operation is carried out by a conventional forklift vehicle owned by the customer or rented by the customer to remove the material from the truck. However, in many instances such a forklift vehicle is not available or is being used elsewhere. As a consequence, the truck driver must wait until such a forklift can be obtained to unload his truck or resort to other more costly and time-consuming means to unload his truck.
The same situation obtains in picking up material at a remote site. Unless a forklift vehicle is available, the trucker in many instances must wait for long periods of time until one can be obtained or alternatively load the truck by hand.
The foregoing problem could be resolved if the truck operator could simply bring a forklift vehicle with him for loading and/or unloading operations at a remote site. By such an arrangement, all of the foregoing problems could be overcome. On the other hand, the towing or hauling of a forklift vehicle to a remote site by the truck poses serious problems. If conventional trailer hitches are used, the forklift vehicle rides on all four wheels resulting in a churning of the transmission power train with consequent wear. Moreover, if a tire should blow out on the forklift vehicle with all four wheels on the ground while being towed, severe damage can result.
Conventional forklift vehicles themselves are extremely heavy and normally are powered through the front wheels. They simply are not susceptible to ready use with conventional towing structures. For example, most towing arrangements even those which serve to lift entirely the front portion of a vehicle have a single point coupling to the rear of the towing vehicle. As a result, swaying can occur and such swaying would be very difficult to control with a relatively heavy vehicle such as a forklift. Moreover, the tines of the fork of the forklift itself often get in the way of any appropriate type of towing mechanism unless they are raised to a high level to override the top of a flat truck bed. In this latter instance, they may interfere with a load being hauled by the truck.